The Forgotten Dumbledore
by Lily MJ Fae
Summary: Annabel Dumbledore has returned to face her past after the death of her brother.


_**A/N:**_ _This was written for round 10 in the Quidditch League fanfiction competition. I'm captain of the bats. I had to write about the portrait of Ariana Dumbledore._

 _Final word count: 1008_

I stared at the girl in her periwinkle blue dress with a mixture of contempt, guilt, love, and grief in my heart. She looked down at me with her ever living smile, the one that I still remembered so vividly despite the years since I had last seen it. It was so much like looking into a mirror of past, and yet she resembled me not at all.

"Ariana?" The voice was quiet and questioning, as if the owner couldn't believe who he saw.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. "Of course you would question if the dead were standing in front of you instead of using logic to determine the correct answer."

I turned to face him, my older brother. The years had not been kind to Aberforth, but then again, _she_ had always meant so much more to him than I had. I know that he and Albus had always questioned why _her_? Why was _she_ the one who had been attacked? Why hadn't it been _me_?

"Don't blame me. You could have been dead for all any of us knew," Aberforth muttered. I felt w twinge of guilt at the accusation. "You left and never came back, never wrote. We assumed you had died."

"She was gone, I didn't want to be her ghost."

"You were fourteen, you could have died, or worse."

"Nothing was worse than watching my brothers kill my twin."

Rage flashed in his eyes for a moment. "We didn't-"

"No, you didn't mean to. You just duelled the most evil wizard with your brother in the yard and she got caught in the cross fire. You didn't mean it, I know that, but regardless you have some part of it."

"And I live with that every day. And so did he."

And there it was. The only thing that has brought me back. I might have left my family behind, but I wouldn't not be there during this time.

"Why are you back?"

"Isn't it obvious? Our brother was murdered."

"Well you haven't been around, I wondered if you cared at all."

"I was busy living my life and raising a family. I didn't need the past haunting me more than it does."

I looked back to her portrait, my heart clenching.

"I was six years old when I watched a group of boys attack my sister, my twin. I was six years old when I lost my best friend. You both loved her more than you ever loved me. She was the only thing I had. And after that day, she was gone, changed, and I was alone. Then she killed mother, and she was even further gone. And we were left in _his_ care. I was invisible to you both. I was nothing next to her."

"You weren't nothing."

I turned back to him, glaring. "Then why didn't you look for me when I left? Why didn't you write? Owls are capable of a lot, including finding people you want to write to."

"I-I-"

"You didn't care. You weren't going to have to see her face every day without it being her. You never accepted the fact that you had two sisters. Neither did he."

"If that's what you thought we felt, then why return?"

"Because you're family. And I spent a long time making sure my children understood that you are there for family and treat them all the same. You think I've gone all these years without think of you once? And how often did you think of me?"

Aberforth looked down with guilt taking over his face.

"Perhaps I shouldn't have come. It's too dark and too full of memories."

I turned back to Ariana and she looked at me with a sad smile, waving slightly. I started to wave back and then stopped myself. She wasn't real. Magic may have been able to capture most of her essence, but this portrait wasn't her, simply a copy of her.

"Annabel, I'm sorry we weren't better brothers."

"No you're not."

"I am. We should have been. We should have treated you the same."

"I understand why you didn't. I ran away from those boys when they saw is. I ran and hid. It's my fault she got hurt the way she did. It's my fault they got to her. If I had just stayed-"

"If you had stayed they would have hurt you both."

"Perhaps. But regardless, I should have run for help, or screamed or anything. Instead I watched as they hit her, demanding she show them her magic."

"They were bad people."

"They destroyed our family. They destroyed our sister, put our father in Azkaban, and everything crumbled from there."

"Father ended up in Azkaban by his own choices."

"Are you saying that you wouldn't have done the same?"

"I would have been smarter about it."

"Father reacted in that moment to save her. If he hadn't, she would have died then."

I sighed.

"Perhaps that would have been better," Aberforth replied. "Better than her own magic turning in on itself and betraying her."

"Don't say that. Death is not the better option."

"It can be. Better than suffering."

"I lied."

He looked at me curiously.

"He's not the only reason I'm here. I'm dying."

"What?"

"I'm sick. And we've tried every possible, magical cure. Nothing is working."

"And that brought you here?"

I shouldn't have been surprised at the child reaction, and yet I was hurt. "I wanted to introduce you to my family if you wanted."

His silence began to make me think that he wasn't interested and that this whole trip was wasted. And then he smiled, a happy smile.

"I'd like to meet them, that would be nice."

I breathed a sigh of relief. Ninety years might be a long time, but it was never too late to reconcile.

"Do me a favor, Abe," I started, using the nickname from when we were children. "When I pass, add me along next to her."

He nodded slowly. "I promise."


End file.
